Where is the Mac midi?

[milo]

if you need to change cards, get a tower. if you cant afford it, get a used one. if thats not good enough for you, then tough.

"Get a tower" isn't a real solution for someone who just wants to swap a video card. That's the TWO THOUSAND dollar option. On a pc, you can swap the video card on a machine that costs just a few hundred bucks. Let's hope apple doesn't have people like you making decisions - telling a customer "tough" is a great way to guarantee lousy market share.

 

[balamw]

"Get a tower" isn't a real solution for someone who just wants to swap a video card. That's the TWO THOUSAND dollar option. On a pc, you can swap the video card on a machine that costs just a few hundred bucks. Let's hope apple doesn't have people like you making decisions - telling a customer "tough" is a great way to guarantee lousy market share.

The proportion of regular Windows users who actually swap a video card is really small. And if they do, they don't do it themselves, but rely on their power user friends to perform the swap. The only groups that do are gamers or pros.

IMHO this is actually one of Apple's big advantages that contributes to the general stability of their consumer hardware. The hardware options they need to support are limited. The biggest source of instability on Windows boxes is the substandard/incompatible hardware drivers that still abound.

Personally, what I'd like to see to fill this gap is a pizza box/AV style enclosure that is populated with an iMac Core 2 Duo (Merom/Conroe?) logic board and has two accessible drive bays (The MacBook is proof that you can serve both the goal of integration and small size + accessibility) + eSATA. It should have all the complement of AV I/Os (including HDMI, as well as plenty of USB/FW ports...). This could then be used as a huge media server hooked up to an HDTV or receiver.

B

 

[MacsAttack]

On a pc, you can swap the video card on a machine that costs just a few hundred bucks.

Not always true. Lots of low end machines use integrated graphics and have no AGP/PCI-e slot to put a card into. Best you can do in such situations is to source a PCI video card (if you can find one) or tell the customer "tough".

 

[MacsAttack]

IMHO this is actually one of Apple's big advantages that contributes to the general stability of their consumer hardware. The hardware options they need to support are limited. The biggest source of instability on Windows boxes is the substandard/incompatible hardware drivers that still abound.

Apple sell commodity computers. You don't expect to upgrade your toaster, your waffle iron, or your TV. Apple see their Mini and iMac the same way (computers that "just work" for "everyone else"). Laptops/Notebooks are different. They were never intended to be user-servicable as such.

The Mac Pro is aimed at a completly different market where the ability to swap/upgrade/add some components is ecessary to tailor a machine to specific uses.

 

[milo]

Not always true. Lots of low end machines use integrated graphics and have no AGP/PCI-e slot to put a card into. Best you can do in such situations is to source a PCI video card (if you can find one) or tell the customer "tough".

Not always true, but there are MANY options for a fraction of the price of the Pro. There's no debating the fact that there's an enormous difference in price between the cheapest expandable mac and the cheapest expandable PC.

 

[balamw]

Not always true, but there are MANY options for a fraction of the price of the Pro. There's no debating the fact that there's an enormous difference in price between the cheapest expandable mac and the cheapest expandable PC.

Yes it's a fact that you can pay much less than you do for a Mac for a Celeron/Duron based system that can still be upgraded, but when you are paying $299 for a system do you really expect to spend a similar amount for a high end video card? Will you? Most people who buy cheap computers treat them as appliances as MacsAttacks states.

When was the last time you upgraded a component in your DVD player?

(EDIT: Before you say that analogy is off base, may I point out that my first DVD player cost as much as a Mac mini, and you will pay about as much for a HD-DVD/BluRay player or PS 3 today and not expect to be able to upgrade it).

B

 

[milozauckerman]

well, they have these things now called external hard drives......

And external hard drives are brilliant for backing up, or should you have eSATA (even FW800 would be close to acceptable) to use regularly. Also, I guess, you could use them for iTunes if you always left it on.

They are not a substitute for a second internal drive.

 

[milozauckerman]

Apple sell commodity computers. You don't expect to upgrade your toaster, your waffle iron, or your TV. Apple see their Mini and iMac the same way (computers that "just work" for "everyone else").

And that is precisely why the iMac isn't a subtitute - or 'gap-filler' for the entry-level G5 and G4 towers that most of us have owned at some point and that do not exist with the Mac Pro.

And you undermine your argument anyway - yes, Apple sells a large number of 'computer as appliance' items. But they've also been in the good ol' desktop PC business for longer - and sold a significant number of sub-$2k machines in the bad old days of PowerPC. Is that market just to be abandoned?

 

[roland.g]

We all want one, but who knows if we will get it.

 

[Kashchei]

And that is precisely why the iMac isn't a subtitute - or 'gap-filler' for the entry-level G5 and G4 towers that most of us have owned at some point and that do not exist with the Mac Pro.

I wonder if this is precisely Apple's strategy, one that is staring us in the face. The fact that there is no entry-level Mac Pro could signal that the release of a "midi Mac" (updated Cube) is imminent. Perhaps this is one of the new items that has been hinted at. I'm crossing my fingers and reaching for my credit card . . .

 

[quruli]

This may be something that happens. At the time of the Cube, Apple didn't have the market interests it has now. Which is PC users who want to come on over but want what they had on the other side, expandibility and options.

I agree that the iMac doesn't fit this market. However it does fit the market Apple intends it for. When most people buy a computer, they get a monitor with it. So there are not buying it "headless" as one would call it. Apple simplifies that process by putting it into an all-in-one package.

Everyone saying that you have to "throw away a display" is just ridiculous. Most people who have iMacs keep them for years. Not one or two either. I am going to digress to make another point.

This is where the argument of price comes in. People will say "Apple computers cost too much", in comparison to a bargain basement $299 Dell with a CRT, yeah it is. However, when you buy an Apple you are getting the fastest and best tech out there, so that computer lasts you many years to come.

Anyhow, I don't really think Apple is going to give into the pressures of this new market. As there really isn't a place for it. I guess they could bring it back as the Mac Cube, but after the failure that the Cube was I don't see that happening.

Apple is covering what it feels it market is. When they feel they should step into another sector they will. I don't think posting here is going to help you out at all.

 

[dan-o-mac]

This may be something that happens. At the time of the Cube, Apple didn't have the market interests it has now. Which is PC users who want to come on over but want what they had on the other side, expandibility and options.

I've experienced this first hand. My brother is a long time pc user/builder who was looking to switch. He loved the look and design of the mini but did not buy because it's upgradeable options are limited, and he sure as hell was not going to pay 2,500 for a tower. So he went out, bought and built another pc tower. I'm stuck in limbo as far as my next purchase goes. I've already owned a crt iMac, fp iMac, Mac mini, and currently own a g4 powerbook. I'm tired of buying Macs with no upgrade option, but can't afford a Mac pro.

 

[Moe]

I've been professionally supporting PCs for the past 20 or so years, and can say with some confidence that less than 5% ever get "upgraded" besides memory, and that's because they weren't shipped with enough to begin with. If you translate that to Macs, 5% of 6% of the overall market doesn't translate to much of a market.

The iMac's easy memory upgrade is all 95% of Mac owners will ever need, and it gets rid of the ugly tower and myriad of cables, especially if you use only the internal speakers and/or AirTunes, a wireless keyboard and mouse, and wireless router. The power cord is it.

The only thing I think it needs is to use the same pixel density as the MacBook on the 20" monitor, giving 1920 x 1200 resolution.

 

[benbow]

Orginal poster comments

Maybe I'm showing my age but when I referred to this Mac as a "midi" I was refering back to "midi" skirts versus "mini" skirts back in the 1960's. Steve Jobs is old enough to get the skirt length reference so he might like midi rather than cube. Remember the NeXt cube that bombed too? Apple can name a mid-range pro model whatever they want as far as I'm concerned. That is a pure marketing issue.

The CPU could be conroe chip if heat dissipation and costs are reasonable.

I liked the new SATA hard disk mounting sleds used inside the new Mac Pro box. An elegant no cable solution. It would be easy to have that same sleds just plug into the back of a smaller midi enclosure.

The graphics card should be a build-to-order option like one gets with the Mac Pros. Only a gamer would be likely to crack the box to upgrade the graphics card. More likely gamers would just eBay their current machine and buy a new one to ensure total compatability anyway.

Additional PCI card slots should be reserved for the big Mac Pro models. The orientation of the edge connectors would be problematic in a compact midi enclosure. The midi power supply needs to be compact enough to handle just what is build-to-order installed.

Unless Apple comes out with a 23-30" iMac, they are not an option for a lot of Mac customers who are used to their big LCD screens.

These comments are based on my 20 years of buying & using Macs.